Sep 11, 2026 · 47 min · 22 segments
Articles of Interest host Avery Trufelman joins Roman to tell the incredible story of the American military’s jacket problem: How should the military…
Avery TrufelmanGuestRoman MarsHostThe United States military did not put their soldiers in wool overcoats because they thought it was the best technology.
For more than a century, they just copied the current military superpower of the moment.
We're basically dressing exactly like the British, it's just, like, they're wearing red, [laughs] and we're not.
And it's funny because when you look at it, we do kind of look like the soldiers from The Nutcracker.
And then we had this really weird period, which is my favorite in military history, where we were imitating the Prussians, and we wore, like, plumed hats and the-
It was like, "We wanna look like the powerful ones." And that decision was sort of made top-down.
The United States military did not put their soldiers in wool overcoats because they thought it was the best technology.
For more than a century, they just copied the current military superpower of the moment.
We're basically dressing exactly like the British, it's just, like, they're wearing red, [laughs] and we're not.
And it's funny because when you look at it, we do kind of look like the soldiers from The Nutcracker.
And then we had this really weird period, which is my favorite in military history, where we were imitating the Prussians, and we wore, like, plumed hats and the-
It was like, "We wanna look like the powerful ones." And that decision was sort of made top-down.
The rest of this transcript — segmented and speaker-labeled, so you land on the exact moment something was said
Search every transcript — by keyword, by phrase, or by meaning, across every show Radar indexes
Trends — what is surging across podcasts, measured against its own baseline
Alerts — when a name you follow appears in a newly indexed episode
No account is needed to search Radar.